posted at 7:00 pm on November 2, 2010 by Allahpundit

The polls are closed in Florida, which means we should be minutes away from Marco Rubio becoming Senator-elect Rubio. The vanquishing of Crist will warrant an appearance from Humpbot, so stay tuned. Also on the big screen: FL-8, where the end finally comes for Alan Grayson, and FL-22, where grassroots hero Allen West tries to finish off Ron Klein.

Virginia’s also now closed, which means Tom Perriello — the only House Democrat whom The One rallied for this fall — gets to see whether that strategy paid off in VA-5. And remember the Blue Dog who was so desperate to distance himself from Pelosi that he ran an ad all but calling her a hippie? That’s Jim Marshall of GA-8. He’s about to be put to sleep.

Finally, in South Carolina, Nikki Haley’s about to make a lot of local smear merchants cry. And we finally get an answer to the question on everyone’s mind: Will Jim DeMint be punished by voters for starting the recession?

Update: Top o’ the hour and the game’s over in Kentucky: Rand Paul and Aqua Buddha are going to the Senate. Coats, to no one’s surprise, will succeed Bayh in Indiana. And evidently, DeMint will not be punished for starting the recession.

Update: The bad news: With 20 percent in, the GOP’s still down 10 points in the KY-6 bellwether. The good news: With five percent in, they’re way, way up in the IN-2 bellwether. See what I mean about chaos on the site tonight?

Update: Baron Hill, the night’s first Dem bellwether, is also down by nine points or so with eight percent reporting. Hmmmm.

Update: Drudge is red-fonting exit poll data that suggests a GOP pick-up of “50+” in the House. That’s the floor; where’s the ceiling?

Update: In case you’re looking at those clickable maps I linked earlier (here’s another from CNN, which seems to be updating quickly), keep an eye on KY-3, too. That’s an extreme longshot for the GOP; if Todd Lally pulls the upset, it likely means a mega-tsunami.

Update: The polls are now closed in Ohio, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Rob Portman wins instantly, but things are looking bad for John Raese in WV: CNN’s exit poll has it 52/45 for Manchin, which is an amazing testament to his popularity. Obama’s approval there is below 40, yet somehow the Dems are going to hold that seat. Brutal.

Update: New House races to put on your radar: Remember Bob “Who are you?” Etheridge? He’s in a toss-up race with Renee Ellmers in NC-2. There are a bunch of other Dems who are longshots for the GOP but could conceivably be swept away in a mega-tsunami — namely, Blue Dog Heath Shuler in NC-11 and Dennis Kucinich in OH-10. If we take out Kooky, then this really is the Dem apocalypse.

Update: Just got a tip from someone who knows Democrat John Yarmuth. Yarmuth claims the numbers show him winning his race in KY-3, which was a longshot for the GOP (ranked 102nd on Nate Silver’s list of likely GOP pick-ups). Assuming that’s true, you can probably rule out an ultra-mega-super-tsunami.

Update: I’m seeing reports on Twitter that early returns for Alan Grayson show him polling … 29 percent. Too good to check! And I’m also hearing a report that Democrat Rick Boucher is going down in VA-9. Right now he trails by six points with 16 percent reporting. If that holds, it’s a huge upset: Boucher was ranked number 70 in Silver’s list of Dem seats most likely to flip.

Update: With 14 percent in, Grayson trails Dan Webster … 62/30. Are we breaking out the ‘bot for this one?